


Siamese twins

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Episode: The Abominable Bride, Inspired by Music, Light Angst, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Sexual References, Spoilers, Spoilers for Christmas Special The Abominable Bride, The Cure, Unresolved Sexual Tension, implied soulmates, robert smith ships sheriarty, sherlock is basically an idiot, some original dialogues from TAB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 12:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5968069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Moriarty was standing in front of the big crystal window, completely naked, his pale, skinny body showing up against the black vastity of London’s night view.<br/>The small radio on the right side of the king size bed was playing a famous song from the ‘80s, and its deep notes of percussions and bass guitar floated in the air of the spacious hotel room, giving a dreamlike atmosphere to the whole scene.<br/>“Do you know that ancient Greeks believed that humans in the beginning had four legs, four arms and two thinking heads?”<br/>Sherlock Holmes took a deep drag on the cigarette pending from his lips, letting the grey, heavy smoke flow in his lungs, then exhaled silently. He had never heard that song before, but the sad words provoked him a melancholic feeling.<br/>“No”.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Siamese twins

_I chose an eternity of this_  
_Like falling angels_  
_The world disappeared_  
_Laughing into the fire_  
_Is it always like this?_  
_Flesh and blood and the first kiss_  
_The first colours_  
_The first kiss_

 

James Moriarty was standing in front of the big crystal window, completely naked, his pale, skinny body showing up against the black vastity of London’s night view.  
The small radio on the right side of the king size bed was playing a famous song from the ‘80s, and its deep notes of percussions and bass guitar floated in the air of the spacious hotel room, giving a dreamlike atmosphere to the whole scene.

“Do you know that ancient Greeks believed that humans in the beginning had four legs, four arms and two thinking heads?”

Sherlock Holmes took a deep drag on the cigarette pending from his lips, letting the grey, heavy smoke flow in his lungs, then exhaled silently. He had never heard that song before, but the sad words provoked him a melancholic feeling.

“No”.

Jim laughed. “You’re such an ignorant, honey. It’s explained by Plato in one of his most famous texts, the Symposium. Actually, it’s Aristophanes that tells the whole story, in the form of a dramatic dialogue”.

Sherlock put out the stump of his cigarette in the ashtray next to the radio, then ruffled his dark locks with his right hand. “I see. Why are we talking about ancient Greece?”

“Humans basically were double creatures” the mathematician replied, regardless of his lover’s question “double and round, almost perfect. The circle has always been the representation of perfection, since the dawn of civilization. This legend is also called the myth of the androgynous, because some of these creatures were made by what we call a male and a female human being; others were instead made of two same-sex beings, for a total of three possible combinations. They were attached by their backs, like some kind of siamese twins”.

“This is scientifically inaccurate and wrong and I cannot understand why we’re standing this conversation right now” brusquely answered the detective, upset by the idea of being less educated than anybody else in a subject of any possible kind.

Jim kept scrutinizing what was outside the big window, far from that vast hotel room in the suburbs of the metropolis, his dark eyes lost in the emptiness of the surrounding buildings. Sherlock couldn’t really tell if the man had even heard his childish complaints. 

“But because of their perfection, these creatures tried to climb the heights of Olympus and planned to set upon the gods, causing Zeus’ grievious wrath. So he decided to cripple them by chopping them in half, making them weak and lonely, dooming them to a loathsome existence, based on the eternal seek of their other half and their lost completeness.”

Sherlock didn’t reply. He didn’t understand why Moriarty started chattering about that dull myth out of the blue. Therefore he rose from the bed without saying a word, letting the sheets slide against his long and slender legs, joining the other man on the other side of the room in his careful examination of the surrounding landscape.

The voice on the radio was now singing what seemed to be a desperate whine.

“I always wondered if there was some truth to this absurd legend. The ancient Greek philosophers were modern and at the cutting edge of thought, even though they lived more than two thousand years ago”.

Now the two men were both standing naked in front of the gigantic window, so close but at the same time separated by a million light-years. The detective’s attention fell onto a thin layer of skin on the back of his lover’s neck, white and tender, that shined in the vague light of the twilight hour.

“I’m astonished by the fact that a man of science like yourself could even ponder about that.”

Jim grinned, and Sherlock could notice by the slight movement of his shoulders, while the glass steamed up due to the professor’s humid breath.

“I am too” the other man whispered, furrowing his eyebrows. “But I can’t help dwelling upon it.”

 

_We writhed under a red light_  
_Voodoo smile_  
_Siamese twins_  
_A girl at the window looks at me for an hour_  
_Then everything falls apart_  
_Broken inside me, it falls apart_

 

“Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind.”

Moriarty was standing in Sherlock’s living room, more alive and real than he had ever been. He was wearing a long, black tuxedo, his hair perfectly combed with the right amount of grease, a fierce, conscious expression on his oval face.

“Then possibly my answer has crossed yours” answered the detective while slowly rising from the wooden floor, his limbs still numb due to the drug he had injected in his veins.

“Like a _bullet_ ” the professor replied, emphasizing the latter word. “It's a dangerous habit, to finger loaded firearms in the pocket of one's dressing gown. Or are you just pleased to see me?”

He would have never admitted such thing out loud but, in fact, he was. 

“You'll forgive me for taking precautions.”

“I'd be offended if you didn't” muttered Jim, grinning. “Obviously, I've returned the courtesy” he added, pulling out the gun from his pocket and then playing with it, as if it was the most harmless of toys.

“I like your rooms. They smell so… _manly_ ” Moriarty continued, purring. The smile on his face widened while he bit his lower lip, then he licked it. “Just like your naked body against mine”.

Sherlock shivered. That absurd scene was too familiar for him, it was like he had lived the whole thing in another life. “I'm sure you acquainted yourself with them before now” he said, unsure of how to behave in a weird situation like the one he just found himself into.

“Well, you are always away, on your little adventures for The Strand. Tell me, does the illustrator travel with you?” Moriarty asked, mocking his lover. A pair of dark eyes locked with Holmes’ light blue ones, and the man could not help but feeling a hot, uncomfortable sensation in the lower part of his abdomen.

“Do you have to pose during your deductions?” the mathematician went on, faking a pondering pose, laying the cold barrel of his weapon against his chin. “Besides, you look way prettier without that stupid dressing gown on. You should definitely let him paint you completely naked, at least he would have something interesting to look at.”

The detective felt provoked and frustrated. Moriarty was flirting and toying with him and it was becoming more and more difficult to cope with it – an irresistible force was dragging them closer and Sherlock couldn’t state if it was because of his own will or the side effects of the cocaine he just took. So he tried changing subject, in a hopeless attempt to avoid the inevitable.

“I'm aware of all six occasions you have visited these apartments during my absence” he muttered angrily, while the other man wandered around the living room, still playing with his shining weapon.

Jim neared the big fireplace on the other side of the place, then let two long and slender fingers glide against the marble surface coated in dust. 

“I know you are. By the way, you have a _surprisingly_ comfortable bed.” The professor beamed, as if he’d just made the funniest joke. “ _As if I didn’t already know._ ” He paused, carefully scanning the thin layer of dust that was now covering the tips of his index and middle fingers. “Did you know that dust is largely composed of human skin?”

“Yes.”

And then, James Moriarty _licked_ his fingers. He slowly licked them with his wet and luscios tongue, just before the dazed look of a completely astonished and surprisingly excited Sherlock Holmes, making sure that he could admire all the lenght of it, something he had always appreciated the most.  
That man was utterly crazy. Not that the detective wasn’t aware of it, of course – but Jim loved stressing the concept out every time he had the chance to, and every single time in a complete diverse and brand new way.

“Doesn't taste the same, though. You want your skin smooth and flexible – just like the one wrapping the inner part of your thigh.” He paused, brushing his lips with the tips of the same two fingers, now moist due to his own saliva. “So right now it’s basically like I was licking my favourite part of your body, except for the horrible taste. Actually, I think it would be more enjoyable for you too to have my tongue stuck between your legs.”

The atmosphere in the room was becoming unbearably heavy. Sherlock wanted to make him disappear, or at least shut his damn mouth up, _maybe by pushing the mathematician against the wall, pulling his dark hair in his fist while biting his neck and_ – 

“Won't you sit down?” he instead asked, exasperated.

His lover, though, probably wasn’t even listening.

“That's all people really are, you know. Dust, waiting to be distributed. And it gets everywhere. Ugh. In every breath you take, dancing in every sunbeam, all the used-up people”.

“Fascinating, I'm sure. Won't you sit-”

“People, people, people!” he interrupted, looking down the barrel of his gun. “Can't keep anything shiny. Do you mind if I fire this? Just to clean it out.”

Moriarty suddenly pointed the revolver to Sherlock’s head, and he instantly did the same with his own. They stayed for a few seconds like that, the two weapons lingering in the air, almost touching. Then the detective slowly lowered his gun and threw it on the table next to him, while the other man quietly did the same.

“Exactly, let's stop playing. We don't need toys to kill each other. Where's the _intimacy_ in that? And don’t you dare telling me we’re not intimate, honey.”

“Sit down” Sherlock commanded, walking toward Jim’s direction.

“Why? What do you want?”

They were standing one in front of the other, separated by less than an arm of distance. Jim’s expression was inscrutable, but the detective could perceive that he was waiting for something to happen. Exactly for what, though, he had no idea.

“You chose to come here.”

“Not true, you know that's not true. What do you want, Sherlock?”

Now their bodies were only a few inches apart. Sherlock could almost feel his lover’s hot breath against his skin, the dark, profound irises studying every bit of his figure. Jim’s lips were of the palest shade of pink, as always, and the other man leaned forward, almost brushing them with his own.

“The truth.”

The mathematician nodded. “That.”

Then he grinned and slowly reached out as well, closing up the small space still in between them. Their mouths crushed in a wet and lusty kiss, made of desire, obsession and years of unspoken words. The detective sensed a familiar, sticky and disgusting feeling, that seemed to slowly constrict his own chest. Their lips were still intertwined when he raised his hands to draw the other man’s body closer to him, but before he could even touch him, Moriarty had already slipped away. Sherlock immediately opened his eyelids just to find an amused James Moriarty by his left side, his arms folded as he laughed, satisfied.

“Truth's boring.”

The professor turned on his heels, showing his back to the man that he had just left dumb and eager for more. “You didn't expect me to turn up at the scene of the crime, did you? Poor old Sir Eustace. He got what was coming to him.”

“But you couldn't have killed him.”

“Oh, so what? Does it matter? Stop it. Stop this. You don't care about Sir Eustace, or the Bride, or any of it. There's only one thing in this whole business that you find interesting, and we both know who – sorry, I mean what – it is.”

“I know what you're doing.” Sherlock whispered, angrier than ever, his nails planted on he palms of his hands in a tight fist, almost hurting. The whole room started quivering, and the bottles of fine liqueurs on the table at his side made a rattling, trembling sound.

“The Bride put a gun in her mouth and shot the back of her head off and then she came back. Impossible. But she did it. And you need to know how. How? Don't you? It's tearing your world apart, not knowing.”

“You're trying to stop me” Sherlock interrupted him, closing his eyes, forcing himself not to listen anymore. “To distract me, derail me.”

“Because doesn't this remind you of another case?” Jim asked, even though it was clear that he already knew the answer to his own question. “Hasn't this all happened before? There's nothing new under the sun. What was it? What was it? What was that case? Huh? Do you remember? It's on the tip of my tongue. It's on the tip of my tongue. It's on the tip of my tongue. It's on the tip” and then he paused, just a few seconds, to do something that left Sherlock really speechless “of my tongue.”

Moriarty’s tongue was pressed against the silver barrel of his gun, but his eyes were fixed on Sherlock’s figure, and the famous consulting detective, for the first time in his whole life, had no clue about what to do next. He didn’t want Jim to shoot himself, nor he wanted to let him know that he actually cared about his life. Therefore, he decided to try changing the other man’s mind without confessing his feelings.

“For the sake of Mrs. Hudson's wallpaper, I must remind you that one false move with your finger and you will be dead.”

The professor laughed, then mumbled something with his mouth still open.

“I’m sorry?”

Moriarty removed the weapon from his tongue, then grinned.

“Dead…is the new _sexy._ ”

He opened his mouth again and, before Sherlock could speak, he shot himself in the back of his head. The whole room started spinning and the detective fell onto his knees, his body shivering due to the withdrawal. He rolled onto the floor, looking up, and he could see Moriarty approaching and bending over him.

“How can you be… _alive_?” Sherlock stammered out, amazed.

“How do I look?” answered the other one, showing a gigantic hole on the back of his head. It was abominable. Dried blood and little pieces of brains were surrounding the cleaving in his skull but, nonetheless, Moriarty was still talking and breathing. He also leaned onto Sherlock’s face and kissed him, too, and the detective felt arousal for a walking corpse.

“Huh? You can be honest, is it noticeable? Would you still fuck me even tough you’d end up having tiny pieces of my brain everywhere? You always said you liked it.”

“You – you blew your own brains out, how could you survive?”

“Come on, honey, don’t be picky. I know I could still make you come with my mouth in less than two minutes, just like I always did.”

That was becoming too much to take, even for Sherlock Holmes. He felt his legs becoming dizzy and heavy, and realised that he was soon going to faint.

“I saw you die” he whispered, looking his lover with an intense gaze. “Why aren't you dead?”

“Because it's not the fall that kills you, honey” answered Jim, gently caressing his cheeks, just a few seconds before Sherlock passed out. “Of all people, you should know that it's not the fall, it's never the fall. It's the… _heartbreak._ ”

 

_The walls and the ceiling move in time_  
_Push a blade into my hands_  
_Slowly up the stairs_  
_And into the room_  
_Is it always like this?_

 

“I am your weakness!” Moriarty screamed, kicking Sherlock’s body under his feet. The icy water soaked their clothes, and the detective couldn’t help but shiver due to the freezing cold.

“I keep you down! Every time you stumble, every time you fail, when you're weak, I am there!” the other one continued, while Sherlock was laboriously trying to rise from the rocky ground.

“No, don't try to fight it. Lie back and _lose_!” the mathematician yelled, but Sherlock had managed to stand on his feet. He pushed the other man against the bluff’s wall, grabbing his shirt with his own fists, and before he could furtherly speak, the detective pressed his full lips against the his lover’s own.  
Moriarty at first didn’t reciprocate the kiss but remained still, stuck in that position for quite some time, too astonished by Sherlock’s sudden gesture to do anything at all. Then he slowly opened his lips and let the other man’s tongue intertwine with his own, mouths and teeth colliding with craving and need, and the detective could sense the familiar feeling that only one person on earth was able to cause him.

“I cannot live without you” Holmes whispered against his lover’s lips, panting. “I finally got what you were trying to tell me that night in the hotel room, you know? When you told me about the myth of the androgynous.”

Moriarty was silent, his dark eyes fixed onto Sherlock’s wet face, the droplets of water pouring down his pointy cheekbones.

“We are each other’s half” he continued, raising a hand just to caress James’ face “and without you I’ll never be able to feel complete. Everything has been so dull in these six years and – and you were right, I’m nothing without you.”

The professor didn’t reply. He lowered his eyes and looked vaguely at the cliff beneath them, with the same, empty look that he had on that night in which he tried admitting his feelings to his lover.

“Say it.”

Sherlock furrowed his eyebrows, perplexed. “What?”

“Say what you didn’t have the courage to tell me in all these years.”

The detective remained still, frozen by the mathematician’s words. It didn’t take a genius to understand what Moriarty was referring to – and well, actually Sherlock was a genius, so he could clearly comprehend what the other man wanted to hear.  
The water was covering every inch of his body. He could feel it in his loins, rolling down his spine, soaking his feet. It was gliding down the professor’s face, it steeped his black hair, and little transparent droplets were hanging down his dark eyelashes.  
Sherlock Holmes took a deep breat and, using all the courage he had in his heart, he feebly pronounced the three words that he had never said before in his whole life, meeting Jim’s dark eyes with an intense gaze.

“I love you.”

Moriarty trembled under his lover’s caring hands, then closed his eyes and smiled. It was the most peaceful expression that Sherlock had ever seen on the mathematician’s face, and he couldn’t help but beam as well, feeling genuinely happy for the first time in a very long while.

But, after a bunch of seconds, Moriarty’s smile turned into an hysterical, inconsolable laugh.

“Honey, it’s too late.”

And before Sherlock could even reply, James Moriarty pushed him aside and threw himself in the whirpools of the Reichenbach Falls.

 

_Dancing in my pocket_  
_Worms eat my skin_  
_She glows and grows_  
_With arms outstretched_  
_Her legs around me_

_In the morning I cried_

 

Sherlock Holmes suddenly woke up, heavily breathing, his forehead covered in droplets of cold sweat. He pressed on his elbows and raised himself against the pillow behind his head, his limbs aching and itching due to the overdose he had just experienced.

A radio on his roommate’s nightstand was playing a famous, melancholic song from the ‘80s. The words were somehow familiar to Sherlock, and without further thinking he turned himself toward the hospital bed next to his own, where his rommate was reading some philosophy text.  
“What’s the title of the song?”

The man lift his eyes from the book he was holding. “I think it’s called Siamese twins, it’s from a band called The Cure.”

 

_Leave me to die_  
_You won't remember my voice_  
_I walked away and grew old_  
_You never talk_  
_We never smile_  
_I scream_  
_You're nothing_  
_I don't need you any more_  
_You're nothing_

_It fades and spins  
Fades and spins_

And Sherlock couldn’t help thinking about James’ words on that distant, summer night.  
_“…dooming them to a loathsome existence, based on the eternal seek of their other half and their lost completeness.”_

 

_Sing out loud_  
_We all die_  
_Laughing into the fire_

_Is it always like this?_

 

_“As your friend, as someone who worries about you…what made you like this?”  
“Oh, Watson, nothing made me. I made me.”_

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first contribution to the BBC Sherlock's fandom! :) I'm sorry for all the Johnlock fans but my heart belongs to Sheriarty, so here it goes. Special thanks to my cousin Arianna, who made a wonderful beta-reading work. Kudos and comments are always appreciated <3


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